Tag Archives: Kissing Frogs

DATING PTSD

DATING PTSD – And why its RAMPANT in LOS ANGELES!

Have you ever experienced what I call “dating PTSD”? Are you wondering what my whacky brain has come up with now, or do you totally get the direction I am heading in?

PTSD is an acronym for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Individuals who suffer from major traumatic incidences often develop PTSD, and sometimes, the traumatic memories can be triggered when situations occur where the individual is reminded of the past traumatic event. In reality, the mere fact of living in a city like Los Angeles likely has multiple instances of PTSD flashbacks on a daily basis, as life can be difficult in this city. But, for this story’s sake, I am only going to reference dating PTSD, because I believe that single people everywhere are ALL suffering from a form of dating PTSD on some level.

What the hell is dating PTSD?

Let’s face it: If you are still single, and you are actively looking for a partner to spend your life with, you likely have had to kiss your share of frogs. Kissing frogs has become an accepted rite of passage in modern life, making dating numerous potential partners in an effort to find true love, socially acceptable. It is kind of like the universe is giving you permission to kiss as many frogs as you need to in order to find your handsome prince. Because let’s face it—everyone, at the end of the day, still wants to end up living in their own version of a fairytale-destined-to-be-together romance of a relationship, where chivalry and passion will keep you in love when the going gets tough.

The only problem with this scenario is sometimes, some of the frogs we end up kissing, leave us with massive scars and wounds and traumatic emotional injuries that I believe result in dating PTSD. Sometimes when these distressing wounds from past relationships reappear or are even gently triggered, we run from a person and a potential relationship before we even give the person a fair shake.

I am betting you are all thinking now, hmm, maybe she does have a point here. I can only use my personal examples of my very own dating PTSD and point them out to you, which will hopefully make you ponder your own life and reconsider the way you are looking at a potential contender.

Let’s start with …Younger Cute Guy dating PTSD

Okay, at first you are excited that a younger, hot guy is besotted with you. Just when you decide that you might kiss this young tadpole and let him hang out with you on your lily pad, you suddenly have a flashback to when you dabbled your little-webbed toes into this pond before. Suddenly, you remember your past ‘younger cute guy’, who wondered what the small dimple in your thigh was, so you explained that regardless of how much you exercise, you have a few dimples of cellulite here and there. So, when he remarked that he had never seen that before, except on his mother’s and grandmother’s legs—him now admitting that he had only ever dated young model types—you and your cellulite dimples felt humiliated and insecure. You were therefore so worried about him noticing any more body imperfections that you pushed him off your lily pad and back into the pond before he had a chance to discover any of your other flaws.

So, this past traumatic moment—when it becomes a flashback after you meet another ‘younger cute guy’ who wants to take you out—results in dating PTSD, and you don’t even give your new suiter a chance.

Well, then there is the opposite… Older Dude dating PTSD

So, a handsome distinguished ‘older dude’ is checking you out at the gym. Finally, he musters up the courage to speak to you and inevitably asks you out. Okay, so he might be a little older than a guy you normally would date, but he is established, dapper, and drives a nice car. But, just when you rationalize the age difference knowing that you will be picked up in a Bentley and will have a fabulous dinner at Spago, your brain suddenly has a traumatic flashback to the previous ‘older dude’ you dated before. Suddenly you remember the waiter asking if you were his daughter, and then you flash back to having to read the menu to him when he forgot his glasses at home, and if that wasn’t enough, then you remember his long saggy balls and you literally gag on your own repressed thoughts.

So, without even giving this ‘older dude’ a chance, you call it off (or you might just wait until after the dinner at Spago, because… it is, after all, SPAGO!) – the result, ‘Older Dude’ dating PTSD

Just think about it, I bet you have tons of dating PTSD examples from your own life. Dating PTSD happens a lot, and when we meet someone who has a characteristic from someone in our painful past, sometimes we just PASS on this person before giving them a chance.

Here are some more examples, in case you are still perplexed, of Dating PTSD!

I dated a Scorpio before, and he was a cheater. PASS! Astrology-dating PTSD!

I dated an Investment Banker before, he was a player and a womanizer! PASS! Career-Choice-dating PTSD!

I dated an Actor before, and I got tired of paying for everything! PASS! Struggling-Actor-Director-Writer-Producer Hollywood-dating PTSD!

I dated a guy who was separated from his wife before, but it turns out she was out of the country, and they were only separated by an ocean. He was a married-cheater! PASS! Separated-man-dating PTSD!

I dated a guy with kids before, and his kids blamed me for ruining their parents’ relationship—even though I met him five years after his divorce—because me being in the picture was, in his kids’ minds, the only thing keeping their parents from getting back together. PASS! Divorced-dad-dating PTSD!

So, you see, with the prevalence of dating PTSD definitely on the rise, especially with the preponderance of the acceptance of serial-societal-frog-kissing, the dating pool is dwindling before our very eyes. Why?!? Because when we fish in the dating pool, and when we catch a fish that resembles one that previously left a bad taste in our mouth, instead of maybe giving that fish a chance—and perhaps baking it instead of frying it—we throw it back because the PTSD memory is so strong, that we don’t want to chance ever tasting that bad fish again.

THE Result! Everyone is still single!!!

So, the moral of this dating PTSD story is:

Dating sucks, but if you don’t try and put your fishing pole into the dating pool of life, you better love your own company and enjoy talking to yourself. If you start to answer back, well, that is a subject for another blog.

Just because something looks similar, doesn’t mean it is similar. Hello! A fake Louis-Vuitton is sometimes almost identical to a real one, but a real Louis-Vuitton is worth the wait!

Instead of assuming you know someone based on a generalization or a past experience, maybe give them a chance before you throw them back into the dating pool. Familiarity breeds contempt, but shit, but giving someone a chance might be worth the risk if you find love in the end. Just a thought…

Please check out my book, Where the Dogs Go available at Amazon or Barnes and Nobles! For Dog Lovers EVERYWHERE! WOOF!!

KISSING FROGS? Who in their right mind would want to kiss a frog? A warty, slimy frog! KISSING FROGS…UGH! I am sure KISSING FROGS has never been on the top of your to-do list. However, I am also certain your mother or someone else has told you, or reminded you over and over again, that – ‘You have to kiss a lot of Frogs before your find your Prince.’

We can blame this gross KISSING FROGS notion on the ‘harmless’ bedtime Fables and Fairytales that were read to us as kids; the same ones that as adults, we continue to read to our children. The Brothers Grimm Fable ‘The Frog Prince’ (damn, their name Grimm really says it all), tells the tale of a lonely young Princess who promises friendship to a Frog in exchange for him saving her stupid golden ball that fell into a pond. A friendship, that she tried to renege on, until her father – The King – told her that “a promise is a promise”. Somehow, out of pity – and after a series of Fairytale like events – the Princess kissed the frog, and VOILA! He of course turned into a Handsome Prince. Hmmm…. So I guess this is where the KISSING FROGS myth-shit commenced???

We all grew up with Fairytales that flooded our early imaginations with stories comprised of magical characters and images that imprinted our young minds. As a result, when girls mature into women, many of us are still looking for our ‘Knight in Shining Armor’, or our ‘Prince Charming’ to come in and make complete our ‘Fairytale’ image of what our perfect man should be. And as we have been told since we were young, we expect to have to gut up – (or man up, LOL) – and be prepared, lip gloss ready, to engage in that long established courtship regiment of – KISSING FROGS – and as the fable goes, we know we might have to kiss a lot of Frogs to find our Prince.

For centuries, the KISSING FROGS metaphor has been ‘Motherhood’ or ‘Sisterhood’s way of trying to lessen the hurt of a relationship that doesn’t work out, or a way to have women ‘keep the faith’ that the right man will come along, as long as they persevere… becoming a harmless metaphor that has helped heal heartache.

But is the idea of KISSING multitudes of FROGS truly harmless? Should we really be instilling in young women the notion that they need to kiss a lot of frogs in order to find their Prince? In 2016, the 21st century (no longer the ‘grim’ mid-17th -Grimm Brothers- century), here are some things to consider:

Back in the day, kissing a lot of frogs to find your Prince meant that maybe you would have to pucker up to 2 or 3 frogs. In 2016 we start KISSING FROGS at a younger age, and by the time most hopeful young Princesses are 30, some have kissed into the double or – God forbid – the triple digits. That is a lot of frog kissing.

As well, back in the day, KISSING FROGS was a discerning task. Today ‘undiscerning’ would more accurately describe how we now go about KISSING FROGS: KISSING FROGS of all ages, KISSING FROGS we just met, KISSING FROGS that belong to another, KISSING FROGS because they will buy us a nice dinner or pay our rent, KISSING FROGS because we drank too much frog juice – the list could go on and on. And what does this random, undiscerning frog kissing lead to?

Well, we know that you truly can’t get warts from KISSING FROGS (or Toads) – but in 2016, if you kiss a lot of frogs, you might end up with a special kind of wart called HPV, or leaky warts called Herpes.

And, if that isn’t bad enough, your reckless ‘Adventures in KISSING FROGS’ might be captured in action and posted to social media for the world to see.

And do you really think your ‘Prince Charming’ or ‘Knight in Shining Armor’ will want a Princess who has kissed every frog in the pond, and who might have some nasty warts as a result?

Unfortunately, as I am still single, the undeniable truth is that I still might need to kiss a few more frogs until my ‘Prince’ comes in. But even though I have, evidently, picked the wrong frogs so far, I have always and still believe that when it comes to KISSING FROGS, quantity doesn’t necessarily make for better frog prospects. I have never wanted to kiss every cute frog in Town, or kiss a frog because he buys me gifts – I have always had a discerning eye when it comes to KISSING FROGS. And even though I am still single, at least – I am not married to a loser frog, a cheating frog, or an abusive frog.

So maybe we should modernize this KISSING FROGS Fairytale a bit……

So Princess, you live in LA, it’s a tough pond. Some of the young Prince froglets will try to lure you over to their side of the pond; they might even want you to share your lily pad right away. You might see many of the other young Princess froglets hopping around sharing their lily pads, and you might feel the pressure to fit in and hop along too. But if you wait young Princess and watch, you will learn from their mistakes. And as you look across the pond, and watch all the hopping around, eventually you will be the only one standing still. And when you are standing still, and the pond is clear, the best of the Prince froglets will see that you are different, you are unique, and that you are strong enough to stand alone.

And true beauty, young Princess, is being noticed because you are unique and strong, and that is what makes you special.

So just remember…

When you are single, and when you truly enjoy being single and enjoy your life, and you don’t worry and obsess about finding your Prince – then your strength becomes a beautiful power that will inevitably leave your path free for the right frog to hop on in!

So the moral of this story is…

Never be afraid to stand out, do your own thing, or be different from the crowd. True beauty comes from inner strength and confidence. And that is the most powerful aphrodisiac.

And you don’t necessarily have to kiss a bunch of frogs before your Prince comes in, because your Prince will come in when he is supposed to – when you are the happy, strong, confident women you are meant to be.